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Next Generation Space Shuttles
zymano writes "Popular Science has an article about the next generation space shuttles. If you're wondering about what happened to all those cool ideas for a new shuttle and what happened to them then this story will explain it. Mentions the politics, design, costs and time for a new shuttle." There's some neat images of mockups as well.
Ok so Monday night I'm in a bar.
Some fuckin weirdo is talking to me. He is trying to recruit me as a programmer. He wants me to guide his spaceship to mars. He wants to beat NASA to mars. He doesn't want to work with NASA because of his ego. God has told him how to get to mars. He doesn't hold a degree and dropped out of school in tenth grade, but that's just because he has four sons. He has mathematical proof that God exists. God directly told him how to get to mars. He has the plans all in his head. He is an engineer. He says Microsoft is open source. He says I am a communist. Someday he is going to find his programmer.
He rambled something about a zero diameter circle. As my boss said, "isn't that just a fucking dot?"
I got up and said "we were just leaving" when Dana says "we didn't pay our tab yet." Dammit. Awkward.
As long as the new space shuttles have some modern computers on board (as opposed to the dated ones on the current shuttles) and the re-entry tiles are properly glued on, then the new shuttles will be just spiffy.
...I don't see a saucer-section, or anything of the sort. What kinda 'Next-Generation' is this, anyway?
I swear to God, though, if they make a mock up of this one, call it 'Enterprise', and try to pretend like it was actually made before the first shuttle Enterprise , I'll shoot someone.
Informatus Technologicus
Will this save lives? probably...
Will it save Nasa....
Ironically both sides managed only to get the half project done - they wanted a space station (SU got that) with a high tech shuttle system (US got that). Don't mention Buran here - the Russian admitted themselves that they just copied the shuttle.
However the cold war is gone and the US is the only super power left. There are some on the rise - China, EU, Islam - , but it will take some time until the got the super power status.
So there is no need to show the own and forgein people that the US has indeed the biggest dick.
If someone doesn't believe this, hey, we can just invade them !
So NASA is in bad luck for some time now.
If they are really clever (but moralically perverted) they would sponsor the education of Chinese/EU PhD students got shorted the period of unchallenged US dominance.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
My question is if they need to think out of the box, particularly for the manned portion. I wonder if it might be better to go with the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo-Soyuz technology. Forget wings. Come back on retrorockets and parachutes. Focus the reusable technology on the boosters and other rockets.
is one of the few places where I don't mind seeing my tax money used more often. Its a shame more money can't be dedicated to this field of research. A new reusable space shuttle that dosent require expendable fuel tanks or boosters would be a big benifit.
i cant seem to come up with a sig.
A viable alternative to the shuttle was on the drawing board as far back as the late 1980s. HOTOL (Horizontal Take-Off and Landing), similar in appearance to current generation supersonic aircraft was designed by British rocket veteran Alan Bond.
Unfortunately, as soon as Bond had designed the revolutionary air-breathing engine that the project was based on, it was classified by the British government. Score one for stupid politics. So, perhaps the best rocketry engine designed never got built.
Later, HOTOL variants and derivatives were proposed, including an Anglo-Russian project called Interim HOTOL.
Here are a few related links to check out, most of which contain illustrations of what the orbiter would have looked like:
HOTOL
HOTOL and Interim HOTOL
Wikipedia entry for HOTOL
Google search for "HOTOL"
Of course, HOTOL and HOTOL-derived orbiters are still a viable alternative today. Air-breathing engines seem to be the logical next step.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I wouldn't exactly call the existing space shuttles "disaster prone".
They've flown for 22 years. Imagine what the mileage is? Somewhere in the millions, maybe even billions.
Only two out of five have failed.
I would only concede the disaster-prone point when considering that the astronauts lives were lost; that's certainly a little more impactful than a bunch of drunken teenagers totalling a car, right? But even then, the shuttles themselves are not disaster-prone; it's just that any slight mishap is instantly promoted to National Disaster and Mourning Period status.
The person's point above, that the shuttle's computers are outdated, is partially true - but they are entirely adequate for running the onboard software. When you're developing a system like the shuttle, you simply cannot use the latest technology. It has to be military-certified for mission critical systems, and it has to go through about two years of testing to acheive that status. That point was made in the article, that once you "freeze" development, that's what you're stuck with.
The shuttles work as they were designed.
The problem is that NASA made them too high-maintenance.
I fully agree with the article's point, that an automated human escape mechanism is required in reusable space flight vehicles. Heck, even Star Trek has escape pods.
propultion systems that can power a single stage machine. then when they have that placing the new propuyltion on a space plane will be little effort.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
As a rule of thumb, it doesn't make sense to design a new reusable or semireusable launch vehicle unless you're going to be using it at least 1000 times. Otherwise, the design costs don't get recouped. Realistically this means NASA is going to have to find enough payloads to launch one of these every week or so.
At current launch rates, NASA should stick with expendable vehicles.
I am really really curios about what happened to them. Because I really want to know what heppened to them!
For the submission "...wondering about what happened to all those cool ideas for a new shuttle and what happened to them..."
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
Why is so absolutely necessary to have a fleet of reusable space vehicles? Wouldn't it be cheaper to build a simpler, cheaper, one-time-use vehicle that can be customized for each mission and then scrapped for parts upon landing? I mean, $500 million per launch is a lot, and reducing complexity and reusability requirements could probably go a long way toward reducing that. Why is "reusable" such a huge buzzword?
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
The current shuttle fleet is silly. In effect, NASA has a fleet of enormous dump trucks that it uses as taxicabs. They should have more than one type of craft - a small safe one for carrying people, and a big honkin' unmanned one for carrying freight.
If in a hundred years time AMD is producing the CPUs for NASA spacecraft, they won't need tiles. They'll need cooling fins instead.
Supporters of the Space program (myself and most other /.-ers i guess )tend to find it hard to believe so little prgress has been made in this field over the last 30 years.
Generally NASA and the lot get blamed for being inefficiate, wasing the money, etc. But as a European I have to make the reflection , if that we're the reason why aren't us European ahead of NASA with ESA, and the Russians even with their money problems . Even That Billion Chinese peolple are quite recently joining...
I think we can only conclude it's NOT as easy as it looks/seems...
(Allthough a bit faster must be possible no ?)
I want one.
It's very simple. What we need are reusable ships with a modest cargo capacity, plus maybe a few "big dumb boosters" for launching big things.
It's also very clear that NASA is not capable, as an organization, of doing this. NASA has some smart people working there, but any really large project will safely bury the smart ones under red tape where they can't do anything. If you want to convert money into piles of paper, have NASA attempt to make a follow-up to the shuttle.
The US government should make iron-clad promises to buy launches. Station re-supply launches for the International Space Station would be a great place to start. If John Carmack's company, or any other company, can get a vehicle going that can run supplies to orbit, the government should hire them to do it. In other words, pay for results but for nothing else, and don't have any part of the government (especially NASA) trying to help design the ships.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Man, thats just too funny.
Bravo!
your math is only slightly flawed
with a reusable vehicle you need more R&D, more $$$ on better quailty longer lasting parts, more $$$ on repairs and replacments
with a use once.. it only has to to be build to last that one flight, throw it away, build another.
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
"rocket scientists might know what they're doing"
... hence its a big failure.
:
... Then why do you ask a rocket specialist to build a space shuttle ?
First off the answer is *no* this as been prooved over time , some of the project they made and idea they add give good or somewhat intended result , but they have yet to provide a space shuttle that everybody can use for everyday space travel
Now for the speciality , someone have yet to tell those in charge of funding to start to fund the space shuttle scientist specialist and not the rocket scientist , whats the difference since you dont seem to know
A rocket scientist make rocket , rocket are projectile that go toward a point , they may carry explosive or not and they may have , exploration , transportaion or military purpose.
A space shuttle scientist build space shuttle , there purpose is to build something that can be used to travel into space and carry astronauts or cargo.
A car industry analogy would be this:
You dont ask a mechanic to build a car but a car engineer
This is simultaneously both the least coherent and most uninformed response I've ever seen on Slashdot (with a side order of arrogant stupidity).
The proposed shuttle looks like Crightons experimental shuttle that can go through worm holes in space.
You're picking nits.
If all of the costs of a reusable program over your operating period can be less than the costs of a disposable program over the same years (ALL COSTS), then it's "cheaper" to go with a reusable program.
Part of NASA's place is also to spur research. It is anticipated that the private sector will be able to build off of some of some of that research.
It makes sense (and NASA would seem to agree with me here) that if you can put enough research into a reusable program, you can get the costs of your launches down far lower than a disposable program. After X years, it will pay for itself. Just because X is greater than 1 or 10 doesn't mean it's foolish to pursue it.
Actually they're thinking about that, kinda.
About the time this issue of PS hit the stands, we had an AIAA seminar with the guy who's in charge of the OSP program at Marshall Center. The latest thinking is, as much as possible, to use off the shelf tech so that they can get something in (and over) the air as soon as possible. The includes using a Delta 4 first stage (upgraded enough to be safe for human use) and only the 6-seater "plane" would be reusable. There was also an encouraging discussion on cycle time; i.e. the new system would actually include the infrastructure to refurbish the OSP and have it ready to launch again in days or weeks, rather than the months (or more) that the shuttles take. OTOH, the OSP is still keeping us stuck in low-Earth orbit. Bah.
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
If I were them, I'd get Burt Rutan on board the design team. He seems to have his head on straight.
The coolest voice ever.
Chrighton's module is the X-38, the main design for the International Space Station escape system. The X-38 is very similar to other lifting-body designs, which most of these are.
:)
(Ok, they just took the exterior design of the X-38. The X-38 can't do half the shit Chrighton's module seems to be able to do!
That's because he modified it with alien technology.
--- No, english is not my mother tongue.
I keep reading that the National Aerospace Plane was cancelled in 1993 because it was "too soon for the scramjet".
Is that still the case? That was a decade ago, have no other improvements been made? The idea of something that takes off and lands just like a plane still seems very, very appealing.
My suspicion is that this is another one of those cases where the too-early version failed, and now everyone's afraid to try it again.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
Well, as clearly stated in the article (hint), the outdated systems on the shuttle is a BIG part of the problem. Each system on the shuttle is autonomous, and requires one or more individuals on the ground to monitor it the entire trip. This results in thousands of people on the ground monitoring these things. Alternatively, if you modernized the equipment, you could DRASTICALLY reduce the people required to monitor the Shuttle while in orbit.
This could save NASA billions in costs. The problem is that NASA wants a new device that is massively better than the shuttle, instead of doing a CBA and get a fleet that is modern, 2-4 times safer, and costs half to operate.
The problem is that NASA won't go with replacement programs until they get a 200-fold safety improvement and a 10-fold cost savings. So as a result, we are spending a fortune on an aging fleet of increasingly primitive vehicles.
Instead, it would be nice if NASA would go for 2-4x safety improvements and 50% cost savings, and then build a new reusable launch vehicle every 10-20 years.
If we left alone or increased NASA funding, we could support perpetual research on new shuttles, with each generation bringing down in costs. If the operating costs dropped, you could save the money and use it towards research. The shuttle program produced a LOT of technology for the US economy (remember everything was space-age in the 80s), and new research programs will continue to do so. However, just relaunching the same thing for billions doing retarded thing like ants in space isn't pushing technology forward, it's just spending money to protect NASA's turf.
... are all bad ideas. It is not time to rearchitect the shuttle. It has worked, albeit with some catastrophes, for the past 30 years and it shows that the original design has merit. What needs to happen is actual *construction* of new shuttles based on the old design rather than the *design* of new shuttles based on pure theoretical, untested theory.
It's classic "don't want to fix the bugs, let's rearchitect" syndrome. However, if NASA and its partners hunker down and fix the problems, we can have a new fleet that will last another 30 years *without* catastrophe.
Here's what they should do:
1. Use their crash data to make whatever improvements necessary to enhance reliability
2. Upgrade their computer systems, perhaps removing a significant amount of bulk. (A $999 laptop has 10x the computing power of the original refrigerator-sized computer)
3. Expand the cargo bay a little bit. If carmakers can do it each and every model year, surely they can, too.
4. Better computer-assisted rocket thrusters for far better maneuverability in space. A next-gen space station will require more agility.
5. Improved ground control procedures. This means redundant, randomly paired inspectors, more stringent weather parameters, etc.
These sorts of things are what will make a better space program. Not pie-in-sky next generation planes that will be even more subject to catastrophe. Let the military figure out how to create a scramjet, fly suborbital, etc. NASA has shown it's no longer fit to push the cutting edge of aerospace.
hhmm.. im not really nit picking i feel ihad some vaild points.
1 -okay.. if your looking at the TCO you need a team to build it (or 5 of them) AND you team to repair them (yes im sure some of the jobs would migrate over)
OR
you could just have one team to build it, and build it right every time
2-spur research? HELL YA!!
reusable shuttle = your locked into a vendor specific whatever (metal, parts, technology, whatever) overhauls and upgrades are premo expensive
disposable shuttle = as soon as new technology, metal, composite is discoverd and tested.. just build the next model out of that
ALSO one month its a lockheed shuttle, next month a boeing shuttle, spurs inivation, spurs compition, keeps costs down, and new tech will spiral down to the consumers, win win win
i agree its not perfect, but as the artical said (RTFA) Quality, speed, Cost: choose two
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
Co-develop the next gen shuttle with the Japanese. The Japanese have a knack at improving efficiency and reliability. Overall, the Japanese lead reliability in cars, computers (vaio's excepted), and general management.
Well thank you , Miss AC
... any inventor/inteligent person knows that.
...
...
...
at least now I know I am right , if an idiot dont like nor understand what you put forward
and your idea it only means that your on the right path
If you cant understand that the space shuttle have problem and that the solution whont come from a rocket scientist but a space shuttle engineer , please dont participate your obviously missing the objective and goal
1 + 1 = 2
if
1 rocket scientist + 1 space shuttle = 0 space program , in my book its a total failure
But your obviously to bright to learn from the past and your/others mistake
That's not actually true. A rocket produces about the same amount of pollution as burning the same amount of fuel in a car engine. The main pollutant it creates is CO2, and it doesn't, overall, produce any CO2 if you use biomass to make the rocket fuel (since the plants suck up as much CO2 as they grow as the rocket produces).
Yes, rocket propulsion is efficient in a chemical-kinetic energy transfer way, but not efficient if all other costs are taken into account.
Nonsense. It doesn't even use that much fuel. First, 2/3 of the fuel is liquid oxygen, it's cheap and environmentally friendly. That's produced from liquid distillation of air. That leaves about 20 kgs of fuel needed for each kg of payload. A person weighs, say 200 kg, including spacesuit. That means you need 4000kg of fuel. That's about the same amount of fuel as I burnt in my car last year. It's a lot, but not an overwhelming amount, and it's not like I go shopping in my rocket every day, going into space is a rare event.
Use geo-thermal energy to power such a mag-lev launcher thing... I find that preferable.
Yeah, but if you have the geo-thermal, why not use it to make hydrogen, and launch with that in a conventional rocket? That way you can do it for a few billion rather than 100 trillion dollars or whatever a 50km long mag-lev launcher would cost. How much pollution would be made in constructing that anyway?
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Let's imagine that it costs $32 billion to design a new space vehicle like the article claims.
We know that an existing launch costs $500 million. If this cost only half as much to launch as the existing vehicle, it would only need to fly 128 times to recoup the cost of the development.
The $32 billion figure is because NASA can't stand to not create new technology every time they build something. They are always looking at lighter fuel tanks using some exotic material that has never been tested before instead of using what exists already and is already significantly cheaper than what is used in the shuttle.
I hate to say it, but NASA should be dismantled and a new agency without the 30 year legacy of ineptitude should be put in place.
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
There is no next-generation space shuttle, and there never will be. Boosting NASA's budget doesn't get senators re-elected, and no private companies are willing to look far enough ahead to see the potential profits in spaceborne industry.
Nobody cares about science or exploration, all that matters anymore is who owns which patch of oil-laden sand in the middle east. NASA has lost both the budget and the backbone for manned spaceflight. We went to the moon almost half a century ago, and now all we can do is putter about in low orbit building overpriced, underperforming space stations. Pathetic.
The human race will die on this godforsaken rock.
0 1 - just my two bits
It seems to me that all these designs are made for one thing alone, and that is to ferry astronauts back and forth to that other orbital albatross...the ISS. If they are never going to get any real science going on that damn thing I would much rather that they can the whole thing entirely. I would like to see NASA devote all the money that goes to the the shuttle, iss, and all the other NASA garbage to programs that will get humans out of Earth orbit and into the rest of the solar system.
NASA research programs are sitting on all sorts of interesting innovations and inventions. I think it would be great if some of those innovations got the kind of funding that would allow them to be realized on a useful scale. I want to see a nuclear powered rocket fly to far reaches of our solar system. I want to see some of the technology put to use in putting humans on Mars and a permanent settlement on the moon.
I'm tired of seeing tax dollars blown on orbital crap that can be done faster, better, and cheaper with robots and computers than by humans in flying tin cans when there are far more exciting possibilities for human exploration of space.
As long as the new space shuttles have some modern computers on board
I was under the impression that the computers were older technology because they had to be hardened against the electromagnetic radiation. Granted, they could be better, but they couldn't put P4s on it.
Regarding your first point, you make this statement as though it's the most obvious thing in the world that the disposable option will be cheaper. I don't understand how you keep coming back to this argument with no knowledge of the real numbers. Yes, it will be more expensive to build a reusable vehicle. The idea is that the cost of reuse will be lower than the cost of building a new disposable vehicle. If this is true, then over sufficient time, it will pay for itself. If you still don't understand this, please take a basic economics class and ask you teacher to explain it to you.
2-spur research? HELL YA!!
I'm guessing this is supposed to be sarcastic. If you really believe private industry has not benefited from scientific advances made by way of NASA programs, you are exceptionally uninformed.
I'm also guessing that when you say "RTFA" you are under the impression that I have not done so. The "Quality, speed, cost" bit has no bearing on this thread. The point the article was trying to make is that NASA hasn't traditionally done a good job of budgeting, promising quality quickly with a low cost. That doesn't mean a reusable launch vehicle will always be more expensive (again, in the long run) than a series of disposable ones. It just means NASA's going to have to do a better job of accounting this time around.
Not necessarily... Factor in the time value of money. In a reusable system all the R&D is front loaded (the really expensive part of the program) and the maintenance is in later (inflated from time inflation) costs.
In the disposable program, (and I question the neccesary use of that word, why can't we re-use large chunks of the rocket?) The much lower R&D costs are also up front, and the higher operating costs are paid for with later inflated (cheaper) dollars.
Chuck
Suitably updated where necessary and with an eye towards reusability if feasible. The Saturn V kicked ass and shows what a kludge the shuttle is, we're talking about a booster that could put a Mack truck in orbit around the moon. The Shuttle was a huge step backwards in every area except for reusability.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Someone explain to me how a program that is "merely more efficient and cost-effective" could be described as "overly expensive?" If this is the type of logic NASA budget planners are using, then they need some serious help from the private sector. Not that corporations think long-term enough to be controlling NASA, but a bit of tight budget sense might help here.
One of those six wasn't meant to, and hasn't, gone into orbit. It was just a test vehicle.
Boner points: which one?
Whichever way you cut it, the shuttle program has NO NINES reliabilty. We need to replace this thing, and fast. Somebody wake up George and tell him there's a leadership opportunity here.
is the webmaster for Popular Science?
I love the choice between text so small I can't see it or lines of text overlapping each other.
I read the article and have seldom seem such unassuming outrage in my life.
... to 2010!
The engineers (at least those who are doing the acutal work) knew the shuttle was heading for another loss-of-all-hands.
... and goes on to present several.
I'm not worried about options ... I'm worried about cost.
With prior projections of $6 to $35 (!!!) billion, I don't feel particularly compelled to keep NASA in the space-shuttling business.
Instead, with the basis for the current shuttle being $500 million per flight, see if we can task those much-vaunted aerospace companies to build a system and run it, at LESS THAN THAT COST.
If it turns out for their launch system that they use a gigantic rubber band stretched between two immense pylons, and charge $10 million per flight, then ... GREAT!
The current shuttle is a terrible system that started out with too many compromises. It smacks of a political statement. The same system could have been accomplished with two other, smaller, cheaper systems: crew-mission ships (very X-15 like) and heavy-cargo lifters. But those were too functional (i.e. not sexy enough) and frankly couldn't have funneled that much money into a mondo-beyondo development program run by an aerospace company or three. So, instead, we got a moderate-lift, heavily-crewed ship that tumbles in the airstream of some mishap (thus being completely destroyed) once every 50 to 100 flights.
What was NASA's response to this last November?: let's keep this good thing going
The article claims that for replacement programs, there's "no shortage of ideas"
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Wings have no use in space.
You do not have lift since there is no air. Wings are just a juicy target for microasteroids.
Having that waste of weight just so you can land like a plane is stupid since a simple parachute can do the same job. Or parafoil. Or retrorockets. Or airbags. Or folding rotors. The list goes on. Plenty of ways to land besides wings.
Also the shuttle needs to make a glide and land in a way long air strip. Try making an emergency crash landing with it. Kiss your ass goodbye.
You can make a vehicle with a parachute land in the ocean or on land (i.e. basically anywhere).
If it is reusable you want, well, you do not need wings for that either. The space shuttle solid rocket boosters are reusable and do not have wings.
Can the idea of single stage to orbit. That way you need thermal shielding on everything and the engines need to be complex to work on different regimes.
Use liquid fuel in all stages since it is less polluting, higher performing, reusable and allows mission abort.
Truax is right you know?
I meant "Crighton" instead of "Chrighton."
:)
Farscape is good, but my misspelling made it look like Crighton is close to the Second Coming.
I don't understand how this changes anything. I am talking about TOTAL costs here, including up-front R&D and operating costs over X years. Am I not making this clear or something?
Add all of your estimated costs up. Include up-front research costs. Include maintenance over time, including any inflation you anticipate occurring. Include margins of error or ANY and EVERY cost associated with the program. INCLUDE **ALL** COSTS.
Repeat this for every potential project (new reusable, reusable + disposable or entirely disposable programs). If any of these plans have a high probability of producing something that will be cheaper than current methods, investigate and pursue them.
Why are we making it sound like the disposable option is always going to be cheaper here. Have you run the numbers? Can we please concede the possibility that NASA has more information than you do and that perhaps they have and fully intend to run the numbers before deciding on a shuttle replacement?
Look, there are way too many veriables in using a shuttle type vehicle. Has anyone ever even looked at a reusable capsule?
Why would we want to have the shuttle transport the equipment up to space? Why not have a transport for people (ie: a capsule which is low risk)? Have a seperate transport for equipment and materials (a big rocket that is unmanned).
Why is a capsule lower risk, NO MOVING PARTS. ONLY 1 surface for reentry. A smaller area for the reentry surface.
Look, I'm not a rocket scientist, but the shuttle is, for me, a money pit, and will have alot more failures than a capsule system would.
That rag could be called Popular Science-Fiction. Nothing in it ever really gets built. This new shuttle will never happen. Pop Sci has always been full of the silliness fifties futurists thought we would have by 2000. Maybe they could even call it Futurama magazine.
How ya like dat?
Now throw in interest costs (you are paying for development before you get any launches, and the value of the launches in the out years is heavily discounted), as well as a risk premium (there's a chance your $32 billion will be pissed away without getting a vehicle; NASA's recent track record in vehicle development is not encouraging.) The 128 launches balloon rather quickly.
Also check out their current indiginous fighter project - even given the basic F-16 design to copy, it's still not finished (it's not an exact copy, but it's taken longer than some of from-scratch designs).
Japanese companies are very good at using mature technology, and at making technology mature. They are fairly bad at using immature technology for end products. Rocket technology is still a long way from being mature.
Although a lot can be done with the technology that is mature. An example was the McDonnel Douglass Delta Clipper X, which was almost all off-the-shelf technology on a small budget. The rocket engines weren't reusable, but they were just driven at a much lower thrust, eliminating most of the wear allowing them to be reused anyway.
Sadly, after being sold to NASA, the DC-X fell victim to its budget - it was so cheap to operate, it was run mostly in a seat-of-the-pants fashion. During its last flight, a technician forgot to plug in the hydrolic hose to extend one landing gear (it had four), so when it landed, it simply toppled over.
Still, when NASA was looking for its last "replace the shuttle" program, it (or the larger Delta Clipper Y version) was one of three proposals - the other two were the Lockheed VentuStar, and a re-worked Space Shuttle. Although the two that lost were based on working technology, the main goal at NASA was for new technology development, not product development, so the riskiest project was funded (Lockheed's).
It didn't fail, in NASA's view - the innovative engines were developed, and aerodynamic studies performed. They just ran out of money and decided to stop it (the composite fuel tank technology was not completed). An end product wasn't really the goal for them - in the end of the program, Lockheed would have been responsible for building the actual vehicle, operating it, and marketing launch services - NASA would just be another customer. It was Lockheed's choice not to without the NASA funded prototype complete to show investors.
In my opinion, the DC-Y was the best choice - no new technology, just build the prototype and go. But it the program had succeeded, I would have been wrong, so blame doesn't work unless you know the future ahead of time.
I would have to agree. The US is entering the next version of the Vietnam era, the endless war on terror. The cash is going to all the guns stuff and the the space program can go suck.
Gryphon's innovative propulsion system uses liquid oxygen, drawn and compressed from the air, as fuel.
Oxygen as fuel? Eek!
An imperfect plan executed violently is far superior to a perfect plan. -- George Patton
Then we had damn well better find some oil on mars! Hey, it could have had some life at one time.... Probably not enough though.
Not a sentence!
It seems a bit odd that the advocates for each type of design never seem interested in combining their approaches for a more effective hybrid.
Using a host aircraft to take your otherwise single-stage-to-orbit flyer part of the way up may be unsexy, but it provides a significant gain in various launcher design parameters and the safety of a tried and tested technique. (Safer for crew too, not just for the accountants.)
It would be damn nice to see fewer purity advocates and more genuine engineers in this area.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
"No. The problem is the 1970s technology made them too high maintenance."
Yeah, well then they should have used 1960s technology. Saturn V rockets were cheaper to launch than Shuttles and they outperformed shuttles. Suyuz rockets are cheaper than shuttles. The Shuttles are the result of some cold war political goal to best the soviets by trying to build a reusable rocket.... If they would have set out to build a cheaper rocket they would have stuck with expendibles.
The orbital space plane is finally setting out cheaper as a major design goal. Oddly, it turns out that the Apollo command module would meet the OSP requirements, and one of the teams is proposing rebuilding the command module as their entry into the OSP competition.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Note to mods:
My angry pre-coffee ranting is almost never worth a +4: insightful!
0 1 - just my two bits
...for the cost of the Iraq war.
Our priorities are inward these days, not outward, to all our detriment.
Actually, alot of talk has focused on using revamped Apollo capsules as interim launch vehicles and especially escape pods for the ISS. I don't have the link but it should be on Google News.
That would be one way of financing the space program: set things up so that the only way the RIAA could stop P2P file sharing is by sending manned spacecraft or very intelligent probes to Mars.
So, what about it? Let's put a solar-powered P2P node on Mars with 100G worth of MP3s and some simple defensive capabilities. Then, let's see how long it will take th RIAA to launch a 20 man crew to Mars to track down and kill the thing.
(-: It will probably be possible to emulate the old computers at a gate level before NASA even reaches a decision on a new computer... :-)
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
I agree with most of the posts here. NASA should have a big unmanned heavy lift rocket and a smaller SHUTTLE for humans. George W should do a speech like JFK and aim for Mars and a permanent base on the Moon. That would stimulate interest in space. Also he could use it to hide other problems in his administration (sorry but there always has to be something in it for the politicians).
If we got to the moon in 69 how far could we get now. It needs to be highly funded to. I can't remember who said it but its a golden quote.
'We are going to the moon in a spacecraft made by the lowest bidder'
We need to get away from that mentallity. Award the contracts on ideas/quality. I'd would mind spending more money on space and less on Defence/Iraq occupation.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Uh - where's that kind of geo-thermal energy going to come from? Oh, I get it - you must be talking about sticking a vehicle in a volcano and artificially triggering an eruption. POW! Seattle is buried in lava, but a melted blob of steel will have been launched into space. Woohoo!
Yeah, especially when you only launch five times a year.
Is this the chicken or the egg ?
In other words- did the high cost of transport into space deter potential customers ? Would a cheaper and more frequent launch schedule improve demand ?
Of course, since the Shuttle never attained that goal, we can't know what might have happened if it had lived up to its original intention.
I tend to agree though. It's like that XP design strategy "You'reNeverGonnaNeedIt".. in other words - don't bother building it till the demand for it exists.
Furthermore, people seem to continue to think that NASA is there to provide science and put people in space. It isn't. Its function is as a paramilitary subsidy for the American aerospace industry. Its upper ranks are all industry, bureaucrats and air force - very few scientists. If an administration would shake up NASA and pressure Congress to quit using it as easy pork, we would have a men on Mars in 5 years.
But it isnt easy to waste your precious weekly sound bites on NASA, especially when theres fear or recession scoring high in the polls.